TO P. B. AXELROD

Published:First published in 1924 in LeninMiscellany II.

      Sent from Munich to Zurich.

      Printed from the original.Source:Lenin
	  Collected Works,

      Progress Publishers,1971,

      Moscow,Volume 36,

      pages108-109.Translated:Andrew RothsteinTranscription\Markup:R. CymbalaPublic Domain:Lenin Internet Archive.You may freely copy, distribute,
	display and perform this work, as well as make derivative and
	commercial works. Please credit “Marxists Internet
	Archive” as your source.•README

March 27, 1902

Ihave just received your letter, and hasten to reply.
I very much like your idea of printing the article inZarya,
instead of as a pamphlet (a supplement toIskra), both in
general and in particular, on account of our plans for moving
to London (Yevgeny is writing to you about
it).[2]About
half of your article is already copied, and I shall send it
to you directly it is finished: the work of copying is going
ahead quickly now. It will be a fine thing to have a
magazine-type article inZarya. As for the changes that may be
required on account of the letter being addressed “toIskra”,
they will be insignificant.

Noone, so far as I am aware, has begun or intends to
write any review onKanun
revolutsii.[3]Therefore please
do write it: what we are short of inZaryais reviews.

Asfor the programme, I will send you my comments on
G. V.’s draft in a few days (my sick friend now has
them)[4];
I showed them to my friends here, and they persuaded me
not to send them to G. V., in view of the proposals which
had been made for an “arbitration or conciliation”
committee. But I would be very happy to send them to you
personally to show you myBedenken[1]set forth therein
systematically. As regards our
meeting,[5]however, I don’t
think it could bring matters to a satisfactory conclusion
justat present. I don’t know what the whole board will
decide (we shall be acquainting it with your plan this very
day), but I personally very much fear that in the absenceof an already prepared third draft,in the absence of a new
make-up of those voting, in the absence of anyfirmagreement on how to vote, who is to vote andwhat significance is
to be attached to the voting, our Zurich meeting would once
again be inconclusive. And you are athousand timesright
about the importance of issuing a programme.

Haveyou seenBorba’s
Kalendar[6]? How did you like it?

No.4ofRevolutsionnaya
Rossiya[7]has appeared.
That’s hard work!

Forgivemefor the brevity and hastiness of this letter.
I am in a great hurry.

[1]Considerations.—Ed.

[2]Thedeparture of the Munich section ofIskra’s Editorial Board
(Lenin, V. I. Zasulich and Y. O. Martov; A. N. Potresov was
unwell and stayed in Switzerland) for London was discussed in
March 1902 when it was informed that the Russian and German
police had got wind of the publication ofIskrain Germany. In
late March, the question was settled and Lenin and N. K.
Krupskaya left Munich for London on April 12. Martov and Zasulich
arrived later.

[3]Kanunrevolutsii(Eve of Revolution)—a non-periodical
publication of theSvoboda(Freedom) group, edited by Y. 0. Zelensky
(L. Nadezhdin). No review of its No. 1 appeared inZarya.

[4]Areference to Lenin’s notes on G. V. Plekhanov’s second draft
programme (see present edition, Vol. 6, pp. 37–57) the MS. of which
was kept by A. N. Potresov until April 2. For Potresov’s opinion
of Lenin’s notes, seeLenin Miscellany II, pp. 105–07.

[5]A“Congress” or meeting ofIskra’s editorial board was proposed
in P. B. Axelrod’s letter to Lenin of March 25, 1902 (seeLenin
Miscellany II, pp. 99–101). Lenin refused to attend. The meeting
between G. V. Plekhanov, V. I. Zasulich, P. B. Axelrod and
Y. O. Martov was held in Zurich on April 14, 1902, where theydiscussed and adopted a draft programme worked out by a
commission, which had adopted Plekhanov’s draft as a basis but with
amendments suggested in Lenin’s counter-draft and remarks.

[6]Sotsial-DemokraticheskyKalendar na 1902 god(Social-Democratic
Calendar for 1902) was issued by theBorbagroup in Geneva in
1902.

[7]RevolutsionnayaRossiya(Revolutionary Russia)—an illegal
paper of the League of Socialist-Revolutionaries published in
Russia from late 1900 (No. 1 dated 1900 actually appeared in January
1901). It was published in Geneva from January 1902 to December
1905 as an organ of the S.R. Party.